RFID Update Publishes Top 10 Rankings

RFID Update today released the , a first-of-its-kind research report that analyzes how the RFID audience responds to certain marketing tactics and messages. The report also includes top-10 rankings of those vendors voted to be best at awareness building and thought leadership, as well as those most desired to be associated with in RFID.

May 16, 2006—RFID Update today released the 2006 RFID Marketing Strategies Report, a first-of-its-kind research report that analyzes how the RFID audience responds to certain marketing tactics and messages. The report also includes top-10 rankings of those vendors voted to be best at awareness building and thought leadership, as well as those most desired to be associated with in RFID. Alien, Texas Instruments, and IBM earned the highest marks, though in total more than 15 companies achieved top-10 status across the various categories. The vendor rankings as well as the other findings are the result of a survey RFID Update conducted in January and February of more than 550 end users, providers, and prospects.

The idea behind the research report was to capture actionable data that RFID companies can use to better market, position, and brand themselves in the increasingly crowded industry. While there were already numerous research outlets offering market growth and sales prognostications for RFID, none addressed the industry from a marketing angle. Filling this gap, the RFID Update research delves into questions about how an RFID company is perceived based on factors such as its: conference visibility (and whether it has representatives speak at conferences), website, frequency of announcements and press releases, print and online advertising, whitepapers, webinars, press mentions, and market research sponsorship and citations.

Beyond these marketing tactics, the survey also asked how an RFID company's behavior and actions influence perception. Does its membership in EPCglobal or AIM increase its positive perception by the RFID audience? Does it matter how sensitive the company is to issues around RFID and privacy? Are larger companies necessarily more favored than smaller ones? What about "pure play" RFID vendors versus companies for which RFID is only one piece of their offering portfolio? Such questions and many more are answered by the research.

One of the key findings in the RFID Update 2006 RFID Marketing Strategies Report is that the current brand leaders are not firmly entrenched. While Alien, TI, and IBM performed best across all three categories (see below), their lead is not a distant one. In fact, of the more than 100 RFID vendors identified as leaders by respondents to the survey, only one company was cited by more than 30% of respondents. This strongly suggests that leadership positions in the RFID industry are still tenuous and that new leaders have an opportunity to emerge.